


Of Living Hells and a Brave New World

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Demons, Developing Relationship, Drug Withdrawal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Ferelden (Dragon Age), Flowers, M/M, Magic, Nightmares, Pre-Relationship, Repressed Memories, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: Cullen's lyrium withdrawal has him at his wits' end, but there's another reason for his angst as well...a reason that reaches far back into his time at the Circle of Ferelden, and what that desire demon had really found out about him versus what he'd told others. Can a gentle touch and genuine concern from an unexpected source help Cullen begin to heal?Also, flowers.
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	Of Living Hells and a Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> Universe: Dragon Age: Inquisition
> 
> Inspired by the post-romance card where Dorian offers a white flower. Also inspired by having played the game so many times I can see the whole lyrium discussion between Cullen and the Inquisitor in my sleep. Also, I adore Dorian.
> 
> This story is set during the time frame when Cullen is struggling with lyrium withdrawal and assumes the Inquisitor's and Dorian's trip to meet with the elder Pavus occurs around that time.

It wasn’t a nightmare. It was a living hell. Multiple. Hells.

He was back there nearly every night. Try as he might to sleep, he woke always in cold sweats, shivering uncontrollably no matter how warm or cold it was in his half-baked not-quite-room in Skyhold. Taken for convenience’s sake specifically because nights like this were the norm, Cullen was glad of the fact once more that in spite of how uncomfortable it was to be in a bedroom with claim to less than half a roof, it was better far than anyone seeing him up and down and up and down night after night after night going between a more solid quarter and his office.

The lyrium had helped keep the living hells manageable for oh, so many years. The lack of it was, slowly, eroding his very life force and he knew it. But what could be done? He and Cassandra had argued, vehemently, until the Inquisitor’s presence had interrupted. The former Seeker refused to replace him. And then the Inquisitor, friend that he was, staunch supporter of all that was good and right, had encouraged Cullen to follow his own path, the path he had already chosen, by not giving in to taking the lyrium after a prolonged, successful abstinence.

But the alternative was this. His clothing was soaked through. He’d awakened three times already tonight and by the position of the moon he knew it’d barely been an hour since last time, and from the sounds wafting through the chill evening air from the boisterous Herald patrons, he knew it still had to be before midnight.

This was going to be the worst night he’d had in months. And with no one to turn to, Cullen was left alone with his –

_“Face up to the disappointment, boy, that you know you’ve always been to your family. Your lies to others about how you begged the Templars to take you into the program do not fool me, for I know the truth of your service to the Chantry.”_

_Flames kissed his skin but it was all in the Fade, in the dark, in the place where demons dwelled as they licked and clawed at his every raw nerve and memory, thought and feeling, using every nuance of them against you. And no matter what ran through his head he never spoke. Then there was the Hero passing by looking for the First Enchanter and Wynne, whom he knew, and others, and the Hero wanted to help, save, keep the mages from dying because even_ he _was a mage._

_The Hero whom he had desired, coveted, from the moment they’d met. He’d been so beautiful, such a small, delicate white-haired elf with glittering black eyes and fine features. He was soft-spoken, shy and yet somehow confident and comfortable with himself. And Cullen had wanted, oh, how he had wanted._

_But the Hero in that moment, in that encounter, he didn’t know and never knew and never would know. He didn’t realize what Uldred and the other mages and demons had done to everyone Cullen had known, to_ him _and oh, how he had hated the Hero of Ferelden for years and years for somehow not magically knowing, and how he still hated mages and the demons they so weakly let through, because of what they did, had done,_ could _do._

 _Now, now, here was this Dorian, this supposed aid to the Inquisition from the very seat of blood magic, the harbinger of all evils, the dreaded Imperium, capital of summonings and abominations and slavery and everything that could possibly be wrong in a society and Pavus was here every single day, smirking and flashy and_ hate hate _hate_!

Cullen gasped himself awake, unaware until that moment that he’d nodded off sitting up on the side of his bed. He growled in anger, had no more clean shirts to wear, but it was still dark and thus off he went down his ladder in his shin-length sleep pants and bare feet and bare torso and mussed hair and Maker, were those tear tracks on his cheeks?

He could not work, but how he could be expected to after this, this waking _nightmare_ having to be reminded day in and day out of the horrors, the atrocities, the—

_Knock-knock-knock_

He jumped practically out of his skin, whirling like a frightened cat at the edge of his desk as the door to his office creaked open to only a small sliver of a crack. “Commander?”

No, no, no, not him, why him, whyever did it have to be him? “Maker’s breath!” Cullen spat, completely undone already, knowing he must look a sight. “What the blazes do you want at this hour, Pavus?”

“I heard you yell.”

That brought Cullen up so short that he forgot to lace his voice with poison. “Pardon me?”

The door opened wider and Dorian stepped through, then closed it behind him. Cullen’s hackles rose as the mage explained, “I was walking the walls as I often do at night and as I neared your office, the guards and I heard you yell. I…” He shrugged, almost embarrassed, in a way, if such a thing were possible for the slick, silver-tongued, arrogant Tevinter _altus_. “I told your guard on the wall there that I would check on your well-being when she expressed concern.”

A long moment of silence stretched because honestly, Cullen wasn’t expecting a single one of those words and wasn’t altogether certain his brain was working well enough to figure out why that had left him speechless for the moment.

“I can see that you’re having a night much like my own.”

That did it. “Do not equate us in any way. You know nothing of my nights, nor what plagues them.”

“Nor you of mine. And yet here we are, both awake when we should be slumbering peacefully and happily warm in our respective beds, crossing paths in the dark of night like two ships meant to keep bashing themselves against the rocks until naught remains but the splintered boards and fallen mastheads we used to call lives.”

How Dorian could be so articulate at this unholy hour was not something Cullen was prepared to contemplate. He knew only that his sleepless nights and withdrawal-laden days of stress had left his defenses wanting rather severely, and secretly began to welcome whatever type of magic the dark-haired man might deign to use on him in his weakened state. And if _that_ didn’t just show how far he’d fallen.

A smirk did little to soothe Cullen’s frayed nerves as it accompanied the snake oil vendor voice of one Dorian, House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous, his customary introduction to one and all, as if this were a thing of which he should be at all proud. “I half believe if I slit my palm open now and summoned a demon to take possession of you, you would happily comply, Commander.”

Cullen didn’t reply. It wasn’t like he hadn’t just thought something similar. But he’d never give the Tevinter mage any kind of satisfaction in words.

The smirk disappeared, replaced by the only serious face he thought he’d ever seen Dorian make. “That is what worries me most.”

“I am neither in need nor worthy of your concern, Pavus.”

“We’ve gone to last names, have we? Rutherford.”

How in the Wilds he could make Cullen’s family name sound like a lewd sexual innuendo was beyond his ken, and yet he could not deny the strange lighting of an ember that smoldered awake somewhere in the depths of his psyche.

_“I know who and what you are. I know who and what you want and I can give that to you, for all eternity. You need only succumb to your deepest desire and it shall bear fruit, and be alive to you in this world where you deny your every need!”_

“No!” Cullen half-barked and half-sobbed as the living hells returned full force. How could it flash before him so hard, so real, while awake? And while standing before this infuriating man, to boot?

Dorian moved closer but Cullen was only peripherally aware as, in his mind, he knelt inside the purple-pink-red prison, the terrifying bubble of magic, arms hugging his own torso, half-crying, desperately burying, forcibly removing, ripping away from his own heart and mind the one thing that the demon had been hammering at him for hours, hours, untold numbers of hours, the secret that Senior Enchanter Uldred had found out from the demon, the one thing that he tried so very hard to break Cullen with, to torture him with, to force him into accepting the same fate as so many mages, so many fellow Templars, already had succumbed to.

“Do you know, Commander,” Dorian said, his accented voice so soft that Cullen had to rise a bit from his anguish to hear the words, “why the Inquisitor and I took that side trip to the tavern in Redcliffe that I heard him tell you about yester-eve?”

“It is not my concern,” Cullen stated haltingly, glad for the momentary respite from his own consuming maw of a mind. “The Inquisitor tells me what I need to know for my position here, and nothing more.” He sagged against the front corner of his desk but managed to keep mostly upright save for his bottom resting on the desktop.

“My father was there.”

Cullen’s head snapped upright, chin off his chest in the blink of an eye. He’d heard Dorian talk bitingly about his family in the past, as one way of explaining why he was with the Inquisition rather than back in Tevinter practicing their evil ways. Why in the name of the Fade would Dorian and the Inquisitor have gone to meet with Halward Pavus?

Dorian inched closer and Cullen looked – really looked – at the man. For the first time he noticed wrinkles at the corners of his eyes in the flickering light from the ever-present and always-lit candelabra at the side of his desk. He noted how even though Dorian was by no means thirty, as Cullen was, he also wasn’t quite as young as the commander had presumed him to be, either. Not that he’d ever thought too much about it, but he’d heard Mother Giselle refer to him as “the young man from Tevinter” while speaking with the Inquisitor once in the great hall, and had assumed Pavus to be a spoiled, petulant child. Though he was flawless to look at, to be sure, at times like these it was as if the weight of the world were upon his shoulders and he looked more burdened than his years might suggest.

This Dorian, the one with a serious face gazing into his eyes, seemed…older. If not in age, then perhaps in wisdom or maybe experience. It piqued enough of Cullen’s curiosity to ask, “Why did the Inquisitor have to attend a meeting between you and your father?” He wondered with a momentary pang of fear if this meant trouble for the Inquisition, but Dorian soon put his fears to rest…with fear of another sort altogether.

“Because our beloved Inquisitor, who truly is my best friend in the world, was afraid for me.”

Dorian ran a hand through his impeccable hair, silky-looking black strands drifting like lengths of undulating water across the smooth dark skin of his fingers. Why that one motion so mesmerized Cullen he wasn’t really certain, but he found himself wishing the man would repeat the movement, and several times over.

“Andraste’s sweet bosom, _I_ was afraid for me.” Dorian huffed out a mirthless laugh at the admission and Cullen frowned.

“You fear your own father?”

The mage barked a sound that was equal parts sinister and sob. “I fled my homeland for that very reason. My flight eventually led to me stumbling into the discovery that Alexius had lost his ever-loving mind, which in turn placed me into an unavoidable cross-path with the Inquisitor in Redcliffe, where he very kindly closed a rift inside the chantry for me, I might add, followed by a lovely chat, a melodramatic and mysterious exit on my part and voila, after doing things like travelling through time with friends old and new, here I am.”

Ah, there was the Dorian he was more used to. Cullen found himself suddenly much more in control of his faculties, curiosity beyond aroused. He enjoyed situations that could be moved around like chess pieces upon a board and suddenly Dorian seemed to be presenting him with a game that begged to be played.

Yet something within him spoke quietly at the periphery of his consciousness, telling him to be silent, not to pry, to allow Dorian to hand him the rule book slowly and carefully in his own quiet way, in his own time, rather than having it forced from him. And so Cullen steadied himself against the desk and waited.

Dorian paced. Sent him furtive glances. Paced some more. Sighed. Turned away. Spoke.

“In the noble houses of Tevinter, much the same as in Orlais, marriage is a business. It’s the business of land and wealth and the sizes of family Houses. It’s about alliances and mergers and acquisitions of seats of power and influence. Creating the most advantageous birthright through the wave of a cleric’s hand, giving that extra little oomph to the gene pool that will result in the most perfect and brightest heir possible, with the best abilities to weave the Fade into magic unrivaled by…well, every rival.”

Cullen licked his lips. Realized they were dry. Hated how tired he felt, how exhaustion tugged at the edges of his mind. But he was intrigued and thus kept sharp attention upon the back clad in a white silk shirt that suddenly seemed like it might be so very blissful to touch. Cullen knew wool and hard leather, not so much the softer and gentler fabrics of nobility.

“Children do not come into being because a husband and wife fall in love and accidentally create them whilst physically expressing their mutual affection.” He barked out yet another mirthless laugh. “No, in Tevinter, children are the product of generations of breeding them for perceived perfection, much like your Ferelden Mabari were crossed with one another for decades to obtain the most intelligent, loyal war dog possible. One who’s perfectly happy to die as part of your armies, to go into battle at your command, to meet and exceed your every warring whim.”

Dorian shook his head and turned to face Cullen. Never before in his life, the commander of the largest army in Thedas thought, had he seen any man’s face bear such a look of pain, sadness, or dare he say it, humiliation. His heart cracked a little at the look of utter misery facing him down and he wondered at the cause, especially on this face, which normally smugged and smirked its way through every hour of the day.

“And we are no different than your dogs, Commander,” Dorian stated, gray eyes finally rising to meet brown. “We children of Tevinter are expected to nod and smile and go willingly to the purpose we were bred for, which is to become Archon first, and then fulfill our part of the magic-fueled bargain, to produce the next most perfect alliance, union and generational talent that our noble blood can supply.”

Cullen swallowed. “Your marriages are arranged,” he concluded.

“Our _lives_ are arranged!” Dorian exclaimed with no small amount of anger. “And because I don’t conform, because I _refused_ to marry the girl and die a little more each day while screaming inside my own heart and mind, my father was going to use blood magic to _make_ me fit in!”

Knowing he had to be missing something, Cullen tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle Dorian was showing him. So many children throughout history had to suffer arranged marriages. It was normal, especially for nobles and royals, who could expect nothing more or less than to be told who they would find at their marriage altar and then take mistresses and lovers on the side, much like Madame de Fer and her beloved Duke of Ghislain.

“I don’t understand,” Cullen finally admitted. “How could blood magic make you marry someone?” Then his eyes widened in horror. “Was he going to bind a demon to you? Make you a puppet to his every command?”

“No,” Dorian shook his head, anger replaced by a sadness the likes of which Cullen felt like a punch to his abdomen during a particularly brutal round of training fights with Cassandra. “My father intended to _change_ me.”

Cullen shook his head, still not comprehending. “In what way?”

“The reason I refused the arranged marriage wasn’t simply because I was a brat or an idealist who wanted to marry for love rather than tradition,” Dorian explained. “It was because I prefer the company of men, and for that my father wished to abuse my trust by arranging for a blood magic ritual that he believed would turn my proclivities toward the fairer sex.”

In his weakened state, it took a couple of minutes for Cullen to slot Dorian’s words together but the moment he did, a realization hit that literally made him stagger. Within a heartbeat, Dorian was there with Cullen’s arm draped across his shoulders, steadying him with a small baritone hum that seemed much louder than it should.

When he turned to face the mage, their noses were nearly touching and for long seconds, Cullen found himself willingly falling into gray irises like pools he’d be perfectly happy to drown in for the moment. He whispered, “He was actually going to do this?”

Dorian nodded once, sharply. “He was going to try. I don’t know if it would have worked. I don’t know if he really knew whether it would work. I don’t know what might have happened. But the Inquisitor, he…he made certain I knew that it didn’t matter to him one way or the other who I lay with, and that what my father had done was wrong.”

“Well, he is correct. It _was_ wrong.”

“Just as wrong as what someone tried to do to you, I suspect, if I read you right,” Dorian whispered.

Cullen reeled physically backwards, purposely tearing himself from the mage’s support, sagging as a stab in his side reminded him of the damnable ever-present lyrium withdrawal and just like that, Dorian supported him again.

“My room is one of those that’s been remodeled along the battlement just there.” The Tevinter’s velvety voice permeated his every cell, singing through him via their physical contact and Cullen breathed in a sharp gasp at the sensation, wondering if his physical exhaustion was making him weak, susceptible. “It has a solid ceiling and warm, roaring fire.”

Cullen felt himself drifting in and out of consciousness and hated himself for it. Hated Dorian for it, because how could that maddening man be at the center of making him feel calm and safe enough to drift in the first place?

“I’m going to take you there, and it’s only partially because there’s no way I can manhandle your exquisite warrior’s body up a ladder when you’re barely conscious enough to keep your eyelids…oh, never mind, you’re not even conscious enough to stay awake.”

Only bits and pieces of his words stuck and he vaguely thought there was some sort of compliment he'd been paid, but soon enough Cullen found himself walking in the cold night air without much awareness beyond the fact that for once, he wasn’t carrying his own burden himself. And for once, someone else actually had it even worse than he.

That didn’t make him any happier.

Out of chilled air into a place so warm he was suddenly struck by the feeling of home for the first time in decades. His childhood home had always been cozy, fires always stoked, never a doubt that any time you walked through a doorway of the Rutherford house you would be instantly warmed, if not by flame then by love of family.

How far away that all had seemed, for the last so many years. Yet here, suddenly, it appeared again from nowhere in the midst of a castle that had seen better days, in the middle of a war, at the center of an ages-old conflict, at the heart of nation that was very close to nonexistence – if Corypheus had his way.

A ragged breath inward as he was deposited upon a bed that felt far too soft for one here in Skyhold but of course it was, because certainly Dorian’s privileged upbringing would see him sleep on nothing less than the best. There were scents of flowers and only as he settled back against far-too-many pillows stacked against a sturdy, ornate golden headboard did he realize that was because there were flowers in bloom literally everywhere in the medium-sized sleeping quarters.

White lotus flowers, red roses, orchids of so many shapes and colors they nearly assaulted the eyes as much as the nose. Flowers Cullen couldn’t guess the names for littered every conceivable surface and even hung on the walls. With magic, perhaps? He inhaled deeply, in love with the myriad of scents that filled his senses. Muted candlelight bathed shadows that the fireplace neglected, and the warmth of a thick blanket soon covered his shivering body and brought a rare smile to his lips.

“Ah,” Cullen sighed openly, dreamily. Maybe he was dying? Maybe Dorian was indeed performing some sort of weird ritual? But he felt so good and surely the mage wouldn’t do such a thing, friends as he was with the Inquisitor, knowing how much the man loved them both, showed it to them in little ways every day. Dorian wouldn’t. Would he?

“The only magic in this room besides how I stuck the flowers to the walls,” Dorian stated quietly as if reading his thoughts, “is the one keeping me from saying things I have no right to say.”

“Such as?” Cullen asked, well aware that he sounded as though he’d just taken two hits of lyrium.

“I…have to confess something, Commander.”

“You know, I have a name as well as a title.”

“I know. But I’m not comfortable using it at this particular moment.” A surprising admission that served to reawaken Cullen somewhat. “I was in your office before I knocked. Before you came down from your sleeping quarters.” Dorian cleared his throat. “While you were…dreaming. Or…having your nightmare, I suppose is more accurate.”

Cullen felt himself grow instantly cold in spite of the room and bed and blanket.

“Believe it or not, I’d come to check out your personal library because I feel like I’ve read every book on Skyhold’s library twice through and was hoping you’d have something more suitable to accompanying me on a cold Winter’s night.”

He relaxed a bit. Well, it was his office, after all, not a private or personal space. There’d be no way for Dorian to know about his nightmares, and Cullen had never made any requests of those in Skyhold to refrain from entering the office one way or the other.

“That’s why I told you the truth about my family. About what my father wanted to do to me. How he wanted to…change what I am. _Who_ I am. Because I heard…I mean, I don’t know, I guess, whoever you were arguing with about…yourself.”

Cullen wanted to be indignant. Bolt from the bed. Protest. Protect. Argue.

Lie.

But he had no fight left in him. The lack of lyrium and weeks of sleepless nights, combined with day after day of continual stress and fear, had seen to it that Cullen was stripped as defenseless metaphorically as he was while lying here in his short pants in a Tevinter mage’s bed in the middle of the night.

“A demon.”

“What?”

“I was arguing with the demon who attempted to turn me into an abomination at the Circle of Magi in Ferelden. It was…is, I guess…the fortress of Kinloch Hold. The demon was…a desire demon…one of the ones summoned by Uldred.”

“This Circle, is it…the one from the story of the Hero of Ferelden?”

Cullen nodded, watching Dorian’s face as the mage drew nearer and seated himself on the edge of the bed.

“You have been there for each of these dramatic events,” Dorian realized aloud. “You met the Gray Warden who sacrificed himself to slay the Archdemon, there at that very Circle.”

“More than that, I watched over him as he learned before he passed his Harrowing. I actually attended his Harrowing, praying all the while I would…that I wouldn’t…” Cullen looked away. He took a few steadying breaths. “Leliana, she traveled with him, so once when they returned to the Circle to speak with the First Enchanter, that’s when I met Leliana as well. Wynne traveled with him, she’d been one of our teachers and mentors there. And Zevran, a former Antivan Crow. I met him a few times. He was the Warden’s…lover.”

“Zevran, the elf, yes, I’ve heard of him,” Dorian nodded. He looked Cullen in the eyes. “But you also knew Hawke even before Varric brought him here to meet the Inquisitor. You dealt with the Champion of Kirkwall while you were Knight-Captain. Varric’s tale makes that clear.”

“I didn’t really know him very well on a personal level. But I dealt with him several times when he intervened in situations the Templars were having difficulty handling, paid him for finding one of our missing recruits, those sorts of brushes. And in the end, even though it was one of his own companions that blew up the Chantry, he helped me realize what a terrible mistake I’d made in not standing up to Knight-Commander Meredith sooner.” Cullen looked away. “So many people died needless deaths because I followed protocol rather than sense. Mages and the Grand Cleric and everyday folk alike.” He bowed his head. “I ordered executions when Meredith invoked the Right of Annulment, I—”

His voice broke. He couldn’t look at Dorian because in his mind’s eye those three mages cowering on the floor begging the Champion to save them even as Meredith insisted Cullen order his men to behead them…all three bore Dorian’s face. How could he have…what if it had…they were…

Tears brimmed in his eyes.

Long moments of silence passed. Cullen managed to compartmentalize yet again, and had almost drifted off to sleep when Dorian at last asked the million-sovereign question that roused him to full wakefulness. “The desire demon at the Circle tower, the one who tortured you.” Dorian and Cullen swallowed hard in unison. “He wanted you to succumb to…being with…”

Cullen sighed. “A man. Yes.” Then he shook his head. “It wasn’t so much a man as it was the man’s identity. You have to understand that unlike in your homeland, Ferelden doesn’t frown so much upon having open relationships between members of the same sex. However, that is a generalization that only holds true if your family is not so zealously Andrastian that they choose what the Chants say as the rule they live by.” He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “And the man I’d been obsessed with since meeting him, while he was a mage at the Circle both before and after his Harrowing, was…”

“The Gray Warden. The Hero of Ferelden.”

Cullen hitched in a breath. “Yes.” He closed his eyes and whispered, “When pressed, I confessed that I’d fallen in love with a mage, but lied about which one.” Cullen shook his head. “He never knew. No one did, until the demon. We weren’t even allowed to talk to them, let alone develop anything more. I daresay others who were stationed at Circles would have similar stories.”

Dorian closed his eyes and shook his head, sympathetic pain etched into his normally smooth bronze features. “You’re supposed to marry and have babies, not be a Templar who falls in love with a male mage under your care.”

“Yes,” Cullen nodded. “I was given to the Chantry at thirteen because from a young age I showed a certain lack of desire for the more traditional path, shall we say. And then I went and fell for the very thing I wasn’t allowed to think about as anything but an object to be nullified should the worst happen.”

“We’re not so different, you and I, it seems.”

“No,” Cullen huffed out in a half laugh. “At least, not in that respect.”

And that’s when it finally hit him. He hadn’t hated Dorian because of what he was. He’d hated _himself_ for not being as comfortable being what _he_ , Cullen, really was, in the company of a man who was over-confident being that way.

Cullen envied him. And Cullen desired him, against his better judgment. That was why the living hells had become so all-consuming, he realized, since Dorian had joined the Inquisition: because Dorian’s very presence brought bubbling to the surface all of the things Cullen had been forced to bury beneath fifteen thousand layers of rock, just to survive a demon’s attack.

Dorian had been chipping away at that rock bit by bit by bit, without having any idea. Never mind the holes in the sky…a rift within Cullen had opened, and he hadn’t a clue what to do with everything that was now pouring from it, nor any idea how to close it back up again.

Dorian turned hooded eyes upon him as he removed his outer shirt and slid satin slippers from his feet.

Or maybe…he did.

“You need to rest, Cullen,” Dorian purred. “You need a night filled with nothing but actual sleep.”

“That would be nice,” Cullen admitted, noting that Dorian managed to make his given name sound like a delicious sweet melting in his mouth and what in the name of the Black City was the commander going to do with these new thoughts?

“I am not just a necromancer,” Dorian said quietly as he crawled onto the large bed and came to rest seated next to Cullen. He reached out with his right hand and touched the backs of his first and second fingers to Cullen’s temple. “I know how to use death to create life, yes. But I also know how to heal while life still exists.”

Cullen managed what he hoped was a suitable look of skepticism. “You’re a healer?”

“I’m many things,” Dorian replied cryptically and then, all at once, Cullen’s headache and any barrier to slumber was gone. Before he could wonder what was happening, consciousness fled.

~~~~~

The morning, when it came, wasn’t actually morning at all. Rather, it was sometime much later in the day than Cullen normally arose. At first he was confused. Fuzzy. Unable to figure out exactly where and how and what and who. That was, until the scents of hundreds of blooms assaulted his senses as if all were whispering _Dorian_ into his mind and he smiled in spite of himself and then truly realized what had occurred.

Nothing.

Not only was he still snuggled deeply into the incredibly comfortable bed covered by thick, warm blankets and still in his sleeping pants, but a fire crackled merrily and well-stocked beside him and upon the small table opposite the foot of the bed he found his entire daily wear, from small clothes to fur mantle, all clean and polished and ready for wear. Even his boots looked nearly new.

“Maker’s breath,” he breathed as he stroked the fur and marveled at how clean and soft it was. Surely Dorian hadn’t been responsible for this. He wasn’t someone who’d know how to wash his own things, let alone be caught dead polishing pauldrons and bracers. Nobles didn’t do these chores themselves. He’d bet anything the man had charmed one of the smiths into it.

Cullen’s stomach was growling in ways that didn’t seem entirely possible and as he finished dressing and slid on his second boot, the smell of a hearty breakfast of meats and fresh bread assaulted his senses and his stomach growled loudly as a soft knocking came from the sleeping quarters door.

“Come in,” Cullen stated, noting how odd it was to see Dorian peek in after knocking at his own room door. He tipped his head at the mage’s mysterious smile, but then noted the large plate piled high with food – even potatoes, he noted hungrily – and all thought of talk fled in favor of sustenance.

He knew Dorian was watching him with some amusement. He didn’t care. It seemed ages since he’d had a decent appetite and his body had apparently only just now caught onto the fact that it hadn’t been eating properly in months.

“You let me sleep entirely too late,” Cullen groused as he popped the last piece of bread into his mouth.

“When I informed the Inquisitor that you were sound asleep for the first time in weeks, he insisted that Michel de Chevin would do very well to lead your vast numbers in a training exercise along the battlements for a surprise inspection by the Inquisitor himself,” Dorian informed him.

Cullen looked at him in horror. “He’s auditing my men?”

“And women. Don’t be sexist.”

“Without me present?” Cullen jumped to his feet, spluttering. “Dorian, you can’t just—”

“Look,” Dorian said, getting right up into Cullen’s personal space in a way no one had dared do for years, “I know that you’re in charge of the mighty Inquisition forces, Commander Rutherford, but the Inquisitor’s in charge of the whole blessed thing, and when he gives me an order it takes more than the specter of an angry fur-wearing Ferelden to keep me from following said command.”

Cullen stopped. Thought a moment. Narrowed his eyes. “Fur-wearing Ferelden? Really?”

“Really. Now. You are to wait until the horn sounds before you show your face anywhere near the barracks, at which point the Inquisitor will fetch you back to his own private retreat to review his audit findings and discuss paths forward.”

Cullen blew out a breath.

“Relax,” Dorian purred. “Your men – and women – are perfect.”

“Hardly. They have so much trouble with the heavier shields and swords from our Undercroft. Weight and strength-training exercises have become mandatory, but only just. Silverite is better, but it’s heavier, and they’ve just not the muscle. With the additional ballast to the new two-handed studded grips, the- _mmph_!”

Courtesy of the palm of Dorian’s hand covering his mouth. Cullen glared.

Dorian smirked.

“To answer the most pertinent question at hand, Commander, yes. You slept in my bed all night and so did I, but you were under my big furry blanket and I was atop it using a different blanket. Also yes, I did use magic to help ease your headache and give you a good dose of the drowsies so you would sleep well. And yes, the pile of food you just consumed was put on your tab at the Herald.”

“Mmtabe—” Cullen grabbed Dorian’s surprisingly thin-boned wrist and pulled his hand away from his mouth. “My tab at the—what—how…who gave you…augh.”

“Use your words.”

“Shut up. I need to go—”

“Not until the horn sounds, or our decidedly unholy herald is likely to give us both grief.”

Cullen plopped back down in the room’s lone chair. Dorian leaned against the door jamb.

Eventually, Cullen said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What’s with all the flowers?”

Dorian smiled, genuinely and broadly. “I told you,” he stated as he opened the palm of his hand and stretched it out toward Cullen’s face, “that I’m many things.”

Cullen gasped quietly when a white lotus flower shimmered into existence out of thin air. Dorian cupped the blossom, reached out and lifted Cullen’s right hand, then transferred the lotus gently from his palm to Cullen’s.

Inhaling deeply of the bloom, Cullen was nearly whispering when he asked, “How?”

The battle horn’s distinct sound interrupted the thought. “A chat for another time,” Dorian smiled as he opened the door to his room and stepped aside with a grand flourish, “when I shall regale you with the amazing sights and sounds of my magical abilities.” He winked and Cullen felt his face heat up. “Do have a good day, Commander.”

“You, too,” Cullen replied, only realizing halfway along the section of battlement where Dorian had taken up residence that he’d just exchanged morning pleasantries with a companion for the first time since the better days at Kirkwall’s Circle when Samson had been his roommate. And that he still held Dorian’s lotus flower in his hand.

The flower was quickly tucked into his collar as he made his way to the barracks.

His step had not felt this light in years.

~~~~~

All in all, Cullen, reasoned, this was the very best day he’d had, bar none, since joining the Inquisition. That was not to say anything bad of the organization, but there had always been fears and headaches that had nothing at all to do with quitting lyrium, made all the worse by the latter. By what had occurred at Haven. By the continual strange nature of everything they faced together and individually. Such fast growth in such a fledgling organization with an untried leader who never failed to impress everyone he met, was daunting at worst and just plain hard work at best.

Never mind things like darkspawn magisters with dragons and falling into Fade rifts and rage demons and allying with mages and Tevinters and such.

Tevinters like Dorian.

Cullen wasn’t sure whether or not he liked the warm feeling that spread throughout his chest and body every time he’d scented the lotus today. Wasn’t altogether certain about the impulse to see Dorian that suddenly took hold of him as he left his office at dusk and headed toward the officer’s mess, which had finally been brought into existence after the Inquisitor had disclosed his discovery of a big dining hall that could hold an army.

Although, when he got to the mess door he was a bit confused. There were lots of voices and they were animated and he wasn’t sure what was going on in there, but swung the door open anyway.

There they all were: Bull, Varric, Cole, Dorian, Sera, Leliana, Josephine, everyone in their immediate circle of friends and advisors including the Inquisitor. Well, except for Solas, but that was one weird apostate that Cullen had neither the time nor the inclination to figure out beyond threat assessments. Even Vivienne was gracing them with her presence, and Blackwall was off to one side laughing heartily at something Morrigan was telling him.

“Ah, Cullen, glad you could make it,” the Inquisitor stated in his booming voice as he reached out to take Cullen’s elbow. “The cook’s beside herself because she’s serving up August Ram tonight!”

Cullen’s mouth watered just on the thought, and soon everyone was taking their seats. He found his eyes constantly traveling to the end of the table where Dorian was engaged in was appeared to be hilarious banter with The Iron Bull while Sera’s weird speech mannerism continued to confuse Cole at the same time as she interjected her own off-color commentary on what was probably an inappropriate discussion for most civilized dinner tables.

But this wasn’t most tables, Cullen realized as Cook and her helpers brought out the first round of the meal, being potato bean soup. This was a table full of odd-persons-out and complete misfits who’d managed to band themselves together under the hand and helm of a last-born noble son of Ostwick against all reason and odds. Cullen listened as Leliana and Josephine debated the finer points of Antivan leather gloves while the Inquisitor, Varric and Blackwall argued good-naturedly about Blackwall sleeping in an actual room so he no longer smelled like the stables.

Even Morrigan was chit-chatting, with Vivienne of all people, swapping stories about being Queen Celene’s right-hand court enchanter. Cassandra was the last to arrive, and she quickly found her place at the end of the table with Bull, who – impossible as it may have seemed – had become quite enamored of her in the weeks since he and the Chargers had been hired as mercenaries after their performance during a Storm Coast battle had impressed the Inquisitor.

They may have been dining at the Herald’s Rest for all the boisterous talk and wine, for all the laughter and name-calling that rose from around the table. It was only when he came back to himself to have his first bite of Cook’s roasted August Ram when his plate arrived, that Cullen realized he was staring down the table at a certain bronze-skinned, black-haired man whose perfectly-shaped mustache was curling upwards with his smiling lips as he stared right back.

Cullen’s eyes flicked around the table. It seemed nobody but Dorian had noticed his gaze and so he returned his eyes to find that Dorian was no longer in the chair he’d been occupying the entire meal. He looked around but saw hide nor hair of him. Maybe he’d just needed to use the privy chamber.

He relaxed and fell easily into light conversation with his colleagues as the meal progressed, but Cullen was keenly aware of Dorian’s absence for the rest of their time together. Leliana mentioned in passing that Dorian had warned he couldn’t stay the whole time but would bother Cook later for leftovers.

What on earth could have been more pressing than their very first meal together in this newly remodeled room which Cullen had to admit was stunning in appearance, after all? At last, belly full for the second time that day, and starting to feel like it was time head back to his office, Cullen realized he wanted very much to know where Dorian had disappeared to whether it was his right to know or not.

Then he chided himself for such thoughts and made his way up the many stairs from the dining room to the main floor (where Dorian wasn’t) and then on out to the courtyard via the large staircase (where Dorian wasn’t) and then around to the stairs near the Herald (where Dorian also was not) and up both flights of stairs to the battlement where he could look across to the wall that had the three rooms, the one furthest out being Dorian’s.

Where Cullen had spent last night having the best sleep of his life.

With a large sigh, Cullen opened the door to his office and was immediately overwhelmed by the scents of so many flowers that he could only stop and inhale. Deeply. It was like the Golden City in all its splendor had invaded his space. Flowers hung everywhere from the walls and the rafters and the ladder and the colors were magnificent! Yellows of many hues, bright oranges, reds that rivaled those of his thrice-dyed uniform woolens. Lilies and lotus blossoms so white they dazzled and blues and purples that put every sunset he’d ever seen to shame.

So this was why Dorian had left the meal? To decorate Cullen’s office with his magical flowers?

He heard the door creak open behind him. Smiled when he realized. Understood. Felt. Remembered Dorian’s confession of yesternight. Recalled his own nightmares. What he’d pushed down, buried, locked away so deeply and tightly that he’d almost forgotten it until a man he should by rights have hated and feared seemed to have wiped it all away with…flowers. Of all things.

“Do you like it?”

At what point had Cullen gone from mocking Dorian’s voice to wanting to hear more of it?

“I hope it wasn’t too much, _carus_.”

“Carus?”

“A term of affection in Old Tevene.”

“Affection.”

“Mm,” Dorian hummed, moving around to Cullen’s front. He saw the lone tear trickling down his cheek. His smile faded, replaced with a knot of concern between his eyebrows that Cullen should not have found so endearing.

“Patience,” Cullen whispered, closing his eyes, swallowing, reopening.

“Not no?”

Slowly Cullen shook his head. “Not no,” he repeated. “Just…please be patient with me.”

Dorian searched his face for answers. Cullen hoped one word would do.

“Yes.”

The _altus_ smiled and nodded. “I have infinite patience, Commander. And ultimate discretion.”

When the door creaked and then clicked shut, Cullen let out a shaky breath. It seemed the Inquisition was making a brave new world not just for Thedas, but for Cullen, too.

He inhaled…and smiled. A brave new world indeed.


End file.
